‘Silver bullet’ to suck CO2 from air and halt climate change ruled out

Scientists say climate targets cannot be met using the technologies, which either risk huge damage to the environment or are very costly

Ways of sucking carbon dioxide from the air will not work on the vast scales needed to beat climate change, Europe’s science academies warned on Thursday.

From simply planting trees to filtering CO2 out of the air, the technologies that some hope could be a “silver bullet” in halting global warming either risk huge damage to the environment themselves or are likely to be very costly.